When Were Fingerprints First Used For Identification?
The fact that human beings had ridges on their fingertips, and that these were different for each person, was known even to prehistoric man! There are ancient Chinese tablets on which fingerprints appear as a way to identify the author of the tablets.
So we can say that fingerprints have been used for personal identification for at least two thousand years. But there is a difference between knowing that man makes individual fingerprints and organizing this information in a scientific way.
The first important contribution to the science of fingerprinting was made by Marcello Malpighi, an Italian anatomy professor, who studied the ridges of fingertips under a microscope. He saw that these ridges were arranged in patterns of loops and spirals.
Fingerprints were first used officially in Europe to identify prisoners in 1858. A few years later, the first study on the possible use of fingerprints was published. This study described a method of taking prints by using a thin film of printer's ink, a method that is still used today.
In the 1880's Sir Francis Galton, an English scientist, began work on a system for classifying fingerprints. Some years later the system was simplified by Sir Edward Henry, a London police commissioner. Soon after that, fingerprints were being used almost everywhere as a means of identification and crime detection.
Did you know that in many hospitals today the footprints of babies are taken shortly after birth? They are also a means of identification.
How Did Movies Started?
"Movies" is short for "motion pictures," and the development of pictures that seem to move has taken place over many years, thanks to the work of many people.
Way back in the 1800's, experiments were being made using photographs which created the illusion of motion. For example, batteries of cameras were set up to take a series of pictures of a running horse.
In the late 1880's roll film was invented. Then cameras were invented which photographed a series of separate photographs of an action an a strip of film and then showed them back at the same rate of speed, thus reproducing teh action. In fact, these were "movies".
They became quite popular. At first they were only scenes of something that moved: waves on the beach, horses running, children swinging, trains arriving at a station.
The first film which really told a story was produced in the laboratories of Thomas Edison in 1903. It was " The Great Train Robbery," and it caused a nationwide sensation. It was exhibited in black lightproof tents.
The first permanent motion-picture theater in the United States opened in November, 1905, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The owners called it a nickelodeon. Soon nickelodeons were opened all over the country and everybody began to go to the movies.
Most of the first films were made in New York and New Jersey and it wasn't until 1913 that the films began to be made in Hollywood.
When did Did Horse Racing begin?
Using horses for racing seems to be one of the oldest sports enjoyed by man. Races between horses were run in very ancient times. They were held in Egypt, Babylonia, and Syria. Homer described a Greek chariot race that took place about eight centuries before the birth of Christ.
But modern horse racing as we know it originated in England, and it had to do with the development in England of the thoroughbred horse. There were horse races in England as early as the 12th century, but it was in the late 17th and early 18th centuries that the breeding of horses for sport really began.
Eastern horses were bought to England from Arabia, Turkey, and Persia. Stallions from these countries were bred to English mares. Three of these stallions were very important. They were called the Darley Arabian, the Godolphin Arabian, and the Breekt Turk. The lineage of every modern registered thoroughbred traces back to all three in the male line!
During the 18th century horse racing became an important English sport. The Jockey Club was established in 1751. And in 1793 the first issue of the "General Stud Book," which lists the lineage of thoroughbreds, was issued.
Horse racing has long been known as the "Sports of Kings." This is because English royalty has owned and raced champion horses, and because royalty and wealthy people in other countries have been involved with the sport.
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